Syft: disrupting the UK’s temporary staffing

The British on-demand app offering the future of flexible staffingSince launching in November 2015, Syft, the disruptive flexible staffing app which removes the need for traditional agencies, has seen exponential growth. Syft offers a revolutionary online staffing platform for the hospitality and events sector in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds.

Syft is cost and time efficient for employers: giving them direct access to high quality, fully vetted staff via the app. This allows employers to view and hire a range of job seekers with varying experience saving up to 55% than traditional temp agencies. Benefits like these have drawn clients such as, Bubble Food, F3 (Fabulous Fan Fayre) catering, Sky Garden, Swan at Shakespeare's Globe, D & D London, Coya, Hush Mayfair and Rhubarb to Syft. Syft attracts caterers and restaurants to use the platform, in order to employ the most qualified staff for the job.

In under 2 years, Syft has drawn over 5,000 job seekers to the app who benefit from the start-up’s flexibility and transparency. The job seeker is able to be their own boss by seeing exactly who they are working for, and what the role involves prior to the shift, without the need to go through a middle-man. After a few swipes on the app, job seekers can be added to the rota for shift that pays on average £9.37 an hour, considerably higher than the average London hospitality wage. Other positions available on the app include bar staff, waiting staff, baristas, chef roles, team leaders, and receptionists, that can pay up to £30 an hour.

Syft offers the highest quality flexible workers on the market. In order to offer this, and differentiating Syft apart from other recruitment apps, is their unique vetting and rating system. All job seekers are fully vetted in person, to make sure they have the right skill sets and experiences so they will only be offered jobs appropriately aligned to their skill set. After being approved, job seekers are offered work via a push notification on their smartphone, as and when the work is posted. Workers are motivated to perform the best as they are rated after each shift. Work is offered both in advance and last minute: Syft is a convenient and functional way of gaining extra work within cities while Syfters simply become an extension of the business’s full time workforce.

The platform allows direct access between employers and staff, and handles all payroll and tax obligations, with the employer paying staff wages and any National Insurance contributions via the app.

Co-founder Jack Beaman says,
“I worked as a hospitality temp when I was in University. I was baffled by how the clients were charged so much, yet I was paid so little. To change this, we launched Syft to create a transparent and quality staffing platform that benefits both employers and job seekers. In the immediate future we are building the UK’s largest flexible hospitality workforce.”

Following successful seed and Series A investment rounds, Syft has raised £8.7 million in 20 months. Notable investors are PROfounders Capital and Creandum who also invested in innovative startups such as Spotify and iZettle, as well as support from prominent angels such as Lord Young and David Haye.